Kosmos

Culture, travel, fashion and culinary delights: the Kosmos pages of Lufthansa Magazin bring you interesting and useful tidbits from around the world

CULTURE CLASH

They are today’s folk songs, and Michael Dennis from England has collected over 20 000 on fanchants.com. We asked him three things in connection with EURO 2016:

Who wins, musically speaking?
Hard to say. Unlike club fans, who get together every week, the fans of national teams don’t have a large standard repertoire. Many songs are only created during the EURO
from one match to the next.

How do different songs compare?
German chants sound like marches, are more choreographed and never stop. English
fans sing variations on the national anthem at every game. Portuguese and Italian
fans sing more foot-tapping melodies that get people into a party mood.

What about the newcomers? What do iceland fans sound like?
It’ll be interesting to hear them in action this summer. I imagine they will sound much like the English and Scandinavian fans.

Use your illusion

The ravages of time? A portal to another dimension? No – just the incredible work of street artist 1010, who is famed for his clever optical illusions on buildings that make flat surfaces look like cavernous holes.

A-tisket, a-tasket …

Until they were banned in the 19th century, monks from the Buddhist Fuke sect wandered the streets of Japan playing gentle melodies on flutes and begging for alms. The sect died out 150 years ago, but their traditions are recreated for special occasions.

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s novel about a man-made creature was published in 1818 and spawned countless stage and film adaptations. Renowned Gothic scholar Sir Christopher Frayling documents the evolution of this phenomenon in his new book.